Education & Training

Residency/Fellowship Training Programs

Palliative Care

Accredited one-year program of added competency

The Palliative Care residency is a coordinated one-year training program that provides the trainee with a broad clinical experience in a variety of institutional and community settings. Rotating through these settings, the trainee develops clinical skills in dealing with acute pain and symptom management situations, as well as the psychological, emotional, and spiritual needs of terminally-ill patients and their families. The trainee sees patients who have access to the full spectrum of cancer care from diagnosis, to cure, to terminal care. Non-cancer patients with challenging symptom control problems are also seen. Rotations include oncology, radiation oncology, home care, as well as electives: the pain service, pediatrics, and other options.

The partner institutions include the McGill University Health Center, Sir M. B. Davis – Jewish General, St. Mary’s, and Mount Sinai Hospitals. All sites have inpatient units and offer consultation services. One site has a Palliative Care Day Hospital and another offers home care services. All units work closely with community and hospital-based home care teams.  The trainee has the opportunity to participate in planning for the provision of a network of home care services to palliative care patients in the community.

This one-year program of added competence in palliative medicine is conjointly accredited by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and the College of Family Physicians. Applicants must have completed their family medicine program or their internal medicine program or any sub-specialty. Trainees are expected to develop a scholarly project which could include a small research project of their own or participation in an existing research project. A literature review is a compulsory component of this project.

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